


Let Me Come In

by Prochytes



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-14
Updated: 2011-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-19 09:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nostrovite is so six hours ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Come In

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for TW to 2x13 “Exit Wounds” and DW to “The Big Bang”. Originally posted on LJ in 2010.

1\. A Private Function.

 

It was a good toilet. Classy. The hidden lights shone burnishing and muted. Flasks of fragrant hand-wash stood in for soap; plump piles of hankies, each thicker than your average bath-towel, for the driers. If you had to choose a toilet to end your life in, this could easily be the one. But most people, despite the illustrious precedent of Elvis, would rather not meet their Maker in a washroom. And that, when you got down to it, was the problem.   

 

The man without a name cowered in a corner. The noises which had awakened him had died away some minutes before. This did not reassure him. Whatever else he had forgotten, he could still recognize the sound of gunfire. The man with sweating palms,  and a drumming pulse, and not the faintest fucking idea who he was, huddled back against the wall, and thought of death. Is a life you can’t remember more or less of a loss than one you can?

 

Some people will tell you (this he can recall just fine: but not his own name, or how he wound up shaking in a corner) that fear sharpens the senses. That gets it half-right. Fear is the pencil-sharpener you twist too many times: it brings everything to an edge that snaps off before you can get any use from it. The drip of the tap, and the reek of the hand-wash, and the slow spread of sweat across his shirt, meant he took far too long to hear the approaching footsteps. He barely had time to register them, before they stopped.

 

For a moment, again, the tap dripped into silence.  The door to the washroom swung open. Whatever power had entertained itself by stealing the nameless man’s life and shitting on the fragments that remained clearly liked its moments of drama. Only a silhouette stood etched against the oblong of blatant light.

 

“At the risk of being melodramatic,” the silhouette spoke with a woman’s voice: soft, English, slightly hesitant,  “I think you should come with me if you want to live.”

 

***

 

The woman advanced gingerly into the toilet, revealing herself to be small, Asian, and hot (on the cusp with smoking). Her blue dress confirmed two facts to the man in the corner: one, she had a magnificent pair of tits; two, he was the sort of guy who noticed immediately when a woman had a magnificent pair of tits. Even in his present addlement, he suspected that this was unlikely to be the key clue in the quest to establish his identity.

 

Then he spotted the gun in her right hand. He was the sort of guy who noticed that a woman had a magnificent pair of tits before he clocked that she was carrying. That probably made him more of an outlier.

 

“shitshitpleasegoddontshootme....”

 

“Oh, it’s you.” Recognition had flooded across the intruder’s face. Along with what looked like a liberal dash of nausea.

 

“You know who I am?”

 

“Yes.” She stared at him quizzically. “Don’t you?”

 

“Not a clue, man. The first thing I remember is waking up here. If you’ve met me, why don’t I know you? More to the point, why don’t I know _me_?”

 

“Strange. That really shouldn’t have happened.” The small woman glanced back towards the door, biting her lip. “I don’t have time for this.” She sighed, and squared her shoulders. “Extreme measures are in order, I’m afraid.”

 

“Huh?” The intruder raised her gun. “Oh, Jesus Christ....”

 

The nameless man screwed his eyes shut. There was a click. He would later identify this as the sound of a firearm carefully deposited beside a washbasin. Some more steep seconds of silence.

 

Then the scent, and the warmth, and the firm slight weight upon the nameless man’s torso all suggested that his lap had just taken an unexpected delivery of _femme fatale_. His eye-lids snapped open as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He could feel her breasts pressing against his shirt-front, just like... just like...

 

Just like last time.

 

“One frog down; a planet-full to go.” The woman in the blue dress smiled ruefully to herself, and pulled away. “What do you remember now?”

 

“You’re... you’re Toshiko. Gwen’s posh friend from where she works. You were toting this big box you could barely carry. And then I followed you...”

 

“‘Stalked’ is the word you’re looking for, actually.”

 

“...And we rushed into that bedroom, and there was that... thing standing over... and HOLY FUCK, Rhys’s Gwen is only a Man in Black, isn’t she?”

 

“Sort of. In a manner of speaking. Does this mean you’re back up to speed?”

 

“I think so, sweetheart.” He began to clamber to his feet. “The Banana Boat has made it back to shore.”

 

“The Snog of Exposition. I should patent that.”

 

“But what’s with the guns?” Banana Boat paled. “That bloody thing’s not still on the loose, is it?”

 

“The Nostrovite? I wish.” Toshiko had picked up her firearm again, and was eyeing it critically. “The Nostrovite is so six hours ago.”

 

“Is that what made me forget who I was?”

 

“Er, no.” Toshiko coughed, and avoided his eye. “That was us. My colleagues and I. The Champagne at the reception was laced with a drug we call Retcon. It’s designed to erase memories the subject can’t handle.”

 

“You people fed us a date rape drug?” Banana did not have to feign the anger in his voice, but he had to admit that he liked the idea of knocking this snooty little madam off the moral high ground, too. Toshiko flushed.

 

“I suppose you could say that. But consider this: wouldn’t you rather be able to think that your friend Mervyn died of a sudden coronary?”

 

“Maybe I would.” Banana remembered the bedroom, and shuddered. “But that’s my choice to make, isn’t it? You never asked.”

 

“No. We didn’t. I’m sorry.” Toshiko hung her head. “It’s a part of my work that shames me.”

 

She looked forlorn, then, and more fragile than anyone counting ammo had a right to be. Now Banana felt like the bastard, which seemed hardly fair. He harrumphed, and adjusted his yellow cravat. At least he remembered now that he had not been personally responsible for his choice of neckwear. Toshiko continued to ruminate, over the sound of clicking cartridges:

 

“I still don’t understand why you forgot _everything_ , though. A single glass of Retconned Champagne shouldn’t be able to do that.”

 

“A glass. Right. Um...”

 

Toshiko’s eyes narrowed. “How much of the Champagne did you drink?”

 

“Just a couple...”

 

Toshiko raised an eyebrow. Banana wilted.

 

 “... of... bottles...”

 

“That explains it.” Toshiko looked relieved. “You must have made it to the Gents’ before you passed out. With those quantities, you’re lucky you retained your language skills.”

 

“So, why did it all come back when we... er...”

 

“Retcon can be thwarted if you trigger a memory from the period it’s erased. Memories based on scent or taste tend to be the strongest – think of Proust...” (Banana’s brow wrinkled) “... or... um... those ads for Werther’s Original...”(Banana’s brow smoothed itself again) “- so I tried to bring back the time we spent in the Nostrovite’s cocoon. I hoped my Chanel would be enough to stir your synapses.”

 

“Well, it worked. Pretty sure we didn’t play tonsil-tennis in the gunge tank, though.”

 

Toshiko shrugged. “Creative licence. I was targeting the head you actually think with.”

 

Banana contemplated some further righteous indignation at this point, but decided not to push his luck. “Right. So what’s this new crisis, then? I suppose you don’t hang out in the Gents’ for fun. More’s the pity.”

 

“A Rift Storm.”

 

“A what?”

 

“Things like the Nostrovite mostly don’t get to Cardiff on spaceships. They fall through a sort of a hole in the Universe we call the Rift. The Rift usually drops aliens on us one or two at a time. When a whole lot of them start popping up together, that’s a Rift Storm.”

 

“And that’s happening now?”

 

“Yes. For some reason, it seems to be centred on this building.” Toshiko sighed. “My equipment says the Storm must have been brewing at the reception. But we only saw the first results as we were shepherding most of the guests away from the premises. Within less than a minute, we were fighting off two Weevils and an Androgum. After that, matters... escalated.

 

“I didn’t see any of it coming. None of my algorithms predicted this. And then there’s the other thing.”

 

Banana looked enquiring. Toshiko cocked her head on one side.

 

“Are you carrying anything with writing on it? A diary, an address book, something like that?”

 

Banana rummaged in his pocket, and produced a folded piece of card. “I’ve got the menu from the reception. Will that do?”

 

“Perfect. Have a look at the script. What do you see?”

 

Banana squinted down at his hand. He frowned. “It’s gibberish. And it definitely wasn’t word-salad at the reception. Does your little amnesia pill come with a side dish of dyslexia, too?”

 

“No. The typeface looks that way to me, as well. Since the Storm broke, every piece of writing I’ve seen in this building has been the same. Even if you write down something new, the letters change the moment you look away. It’s not gibberish; I might be less worried if it were. Everything displays the same eleven-letter sequence, repeated again and again. See? WPEXPNZXPTY.”

 

“Bloody hell. So it does.”

 

“In the word of cryptanalysis...” Tosh caught Banana’s expression and hastily supplied the gloss “... of code-breaking, they call that sequence the Ghost Intercept. It’s a Caesar cipher. Each letter in the plaintext, the original message, is replaced by one a fixed number of positions later in the alphabet.”

 

“A coded message? What does it mean, then?”

 

“‘Let me come in.’””

 

“Huh?”

 

“That’s what it means. The sequence. Every piece of writing in this building, every scrap of text, is saying: ‘Let me come in.’”

 

2\. A Bit of a Do.

 

Banana gulped. His throat, so lately lubricated with fizz, seemed to have gone dry all of a sudden. It was a relief that Toshiko was distracted from his momentary failure of machismo by a sudden burst of noise at her ear-piece. He should probably have guessed that she was not wearing that thing as a fashion accessory.

 

“Jack? Yes, I’ve found the Best Man safe and sound. Is there a clear path to the exit right now? “

 

Another tinny interlude, and Toshiko nodded to herself. “Good. I’ll report again once we’re there. Tosh out.” She turned back to Banana. “My boss says that we should wait another two minutes, and then make our move. Are you ready?”

 

“Raring to go, sweetheart. Raring to go.” Banana gave the changeling menu a final stare, before stuffing it back into his pocket. “This message... you say they call it the Spooky Intercept?”

 

“The Ghost Intercept, yes.”

 

“So it’s turned up before, somewhere?”

 

“Oh yes. It’s notorious.” Tosh perched herself on the ledge beside the wash-basin. “One of the most famous unsolved problems in the history of code-breaking.”

 

“Because it’s so hard?”

 

“Because it’s so easy.”

 

Banana frowned. “I don’t follow.”

 

“In early 1943, the eleven-letter sequence WPEXPNZXPTY was sent to the code-breakers at Bletchley Park for analysis. It was flagged as an intercept of the utmost importance. _Every_ hut at Bletchley was instructed to give it the highest priority, which was unprecedented. And, given the nature of the cipher, very peculiar.”

 

“Why? A code’s a code, isn’t it?”

 

“There are codes and there are codes. In the context of espionage, a Caesar cipher barely even counts as encryption. No one in war-time with an ounce of sense would use a system that a bright six-year-old could crack.”

 

“I don’t know many six-year-olds who could crack that.”

 

Toshiko grinned smugly.

 

“But from your face, I’m guessing little Toshiko did.”

 

Toshiko’s smile broadened. “My grandfather tried it out on me, in my childhood. He was at Bletchley himself, you see. Every hut there deciphered the message in five seconds flat. But no one ever explained where the War Office picked up the original intercept, or why someone high up thought a cipher that easy was so desperately important. There’s nothing about it in the declassified files from the period. Believe me: I’ve checked. The Intercept was, to all intents and purposes, a ghost.”

 

“And now it’s back to haunt a Cardiff wedding.”

 

“I’m afraid so.  Two minutes are up.” Toshiko lowered herself to the floor, and smoothed her dress. “Time for us to go.”

 

***

 

“I don’t need you to shepherd me, you know. Banana Boat can handle himself.”

 

 The corridors outside the toilets were not exactly as Banana had remembered. Some of them were smoking; one or two of them were glowing; and several seemed to have partially dissolved.

 

“While I hesitate to contradict anyone who talks about himself in the third person, I beg to differ. Remember when you tried it on with me? I’m about two-thirds your body mass. You lasted less than a second.”

 

“Huh. You got lucky, Shortround.”

 

“I see.”

 

Banana looked down into Toshiko’s sweetly smiling face, and cleared his throat.

 

“Right. I recognize the many levels on which that last remark was offensive...”

 

“Good.”

 

“...and unreservedly apologize for any offense it may have caused.”

 

“Apology accepted.”

 

“Can I have my finger back now, please?”

 

“Of course.” Toshiko released her grip. Banana rubbed his hand tenderly, and grimaced: “How does a girl like you manage that?”

 

“My boss taught me. It’s all about focussing aggression.”

 

“That’s a family-sized bucket of aggression you’ve got there, if you don’t mind my saying.”

 

“You have _met_ Gwen, haven’t you? And Owen is a whole different ball-game of work-place annoyance.”

 

“Can the blushing bride bust out those ninja moves as well?”

 

“When she has to.”

 

“Poor Rhys. Or there again...” Banana recalled the first time Rhys had spilled that his girlfriend was training to be a copper. Handcuffs had been mentioned. Several times. “... maybe not.  Why is that wall covered in purple foam?”

 

“Death-throes of a Drufidian brain-worm.”

 

“Bloody hell. Talk about wedding-crashers. How many things like that are on the loose around here right now?”

 

“Two, maybe three dozen.”

 

“Two or three _dozen_?”

 

 “Like I said, matters escalated.”

 

“Where have they all pissed off to, then?”

 

“My friends are keeping most of them pinned down on the other side of the building. It’s a stop-gap, but that should buy us time to reach... Ah, here we are.”

 

Toshiko halted in front of a door. The lettering above it had succumbed the same semiotic malaise as all the rest (WPEX), but the colour told Banana it had once read EXIT. Toshiko beamed.

 

“Excellent. All we have to do now is...”

 

The rest of her words were swallowed in the roar of detonation.

 

***

 

One sure-fire sign of a truly poxy day, Banana decided, was losing track of how many times you had passed out in the course of it.

 

The slow stinging drift of plaster dust onto his face suggested that this last blackout had been momentary.  As he staggered upright, he saw that Toshiko too was scrambling to her feet. She peered worriedly in his direction.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“I’ll live. I hope. What the fuck just hit us?”

 

“Give me a moment...” Tosh had pulled a odd-looking gadget rather like a PDA from her handbag, and was now manipulating it. She inspected its screen, and hissed through her teeth. “It’s really hard to work this thing when you can’t afford to blink or look away. Right. We seem to have... Oh. Oh dear. This is bad.”

 

“I’d gathered that from the explosion, actually.”

 

“No; this is _really_ bad.” Toshiko’s gaze continued to flicker across the tiny screen.  “From what I’m seeing here, the space-time fractures developing throughout the building are now orders of magnitude greater than anything we would expect from a standard Rift Storm. If this pattern continues unchecked, the stability of the Rift itself might be compromised.”

 

“That’s bad?”

 

“Very. In fact...”

 

Toshiko’s ear-piece stirred into volubility once more.

 

“Tosh receiving. Yes – I’ve seen the readings as well. We really need to gather more data at the focal point. Could you... Oh. I see. That’s unfortunate. OK – I’ll do my best. Thank you. Tosh out.”

 

“More bad news?”

 

Toshiko nodded.

 

“That was Gwen, wasn’t it?”

 

“Yes. How did you know?”

 

 “I can feel her caring from right the way over here. Why wasn’t it your boss on the other end this time?”

 

“He’s d... down for the count at the moment, I’m afraid. Took a nasty hit shielding the others from some falling masonry. Should be back on his feet soon, though.”

 

“So, what’s the problem?”

 

“Our best shot at working out what’s going on here is to take some more accurate readings at the centre of the disturbance. According to our calculations, that’s the Reception Hall itself. Gwen and the others are closer, but right now they’re busy digging themselves out of wreckage. I’m the only one free to do the reconnaissance. And the sole way back to the Hall from here is through _that_.”

 

Banana turned to follow the line of Toshiko’s pointing finger. The passage behind them was now almost blocked with dislodged debris.

 

“It’ll take me an age to clear a passage through that by myself.”

 

“I don’t envy you, sweetheart. But I’m just a civvy, so it’s time for me to hop it.”  Banana tried the door. To his profound relief, it opened. “Look after yourself, Toshiko.”

 

“Hmm? Oh, yes. You too.” Toshiko had started trying to dislodge one of the more manageable shards of building from the pile.

 

“And thanks for that whole... you know... saving my life thing.” Banana could see the strain in the muscles of Toshiko’s arms and shoulders as she struggled to shift the fallen timber. Ninjitsu notwithstanding ,she looked, again, impossibly small to be a Man in Black.

 

“All... all part of the service.” Toshiko puffed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, grimacing as she almost over-balanced.

 

“I’ll be off, then. Goodbye.”

 

“Goodbye.”

 

Toshiko sighed as the padded door whispered shut, then devoted herself in earnest to her labours. The work was gruelling, and noisy to boot. It was understandable, then, that she almost failed to hear the heavy footsteps shuffling behind her.

 

The sound of the energy weapon charging up, however, was impossible to miss.

 

3\. Let Me Come In.

 

“Turn around, little ape, and keep your paws in the air.” The harsh voice at Toshiko’s back had not been grated through any human larynx. “Show me your face. If you cannot live like a warrior, I shall yet afford you the honour of dying like one.”

 

Toshiko rose, slowly, and turned to face her assailant.

 

“You understand. Good.”

 

Toshiko’s eyes flickered up and down the thing before her. Lupine; about six feet tall; breastplate and a rifle. The overall effect was akin to a werewolf that had swapped some of its clothes with Tony Stark. She cocked her head on one side, and smiled. The creature flourished its gun.

 

“Your death amuses you, ape?”

 

“Not really. But then, I don’t honestly think I’m going to die.”

 

A baring of impressive teeth. “And what are your grounds for that foolish presumption?”

 

“Well, one of us is Chuck fucking Norris, mate.” The creature stiffened at the new voice in its ear, as a light cold pressure touched against its throat. “And the other’s holding a needle to your neck. Wotcha, Toshiko.”

 

“Welcome back, Banana. Nice timing.”

 

“Thank you. Want to tell Shaggy here what this bad boy’s loaded with?”

 

“Your wiles do not deceive me, apes.” The wolf-thing’s eyes were flickering nervously. It kept its weapon trained on Toshiko, nonetheless. “Your trick with the words is pretty, I admit. But you primitives can have no inkling of what I am.”

 

“Oh, spare me. I knew what you were before I turned around.” Toshiko’s own gaze was steady, as she started to walk slowly towards the wolf. “Your footsteps were strong, but stumbling a little in over-compensation. A heavy-worlder, then; somewhere between 3 and 4 Gs. No sound of breathing apparatus, although you were rasping. You’re accustomed to a nitrogen/oxygen mix, but not in Terran proportions. Kelcendris Four has a methane atmosphere, so that’s out. That leaves the planets of the Perdition Array, and Chorvan Prime. If you gave any indigenes of the Perdition Array an energy weapon, they’d try to eat it. Conclusion: you’re a Chorvani Servitor. Willing vassal and auxiliary of the Sontaran Empire, your body interlarded with Sontaran wetware. Grisly, but sort of cool...”

 

Toshiko had come to a halt in front of the wolf-thing. Banana saw its finger tightening on the trigger.

 

“... except in the presence of coronic acid.”

 

The finger froze.

 

“The Achilles’ Heel of Sontaran tech. One little squirt on your skin, and all those fancy upgrades dissolve, taking your internal organs with them.  I’ve no doubt that you’re capable of ending us both, but I don’t rate your chances of doing it before my friend here hits the plunger on his syringe. So, drop that rifle, please. Otherwise, we die fast, and then you die very, very slow.”

 

The creature scowled, and dropped its weapon.

 

“Thank you.” Toshiko kicked the rifle away. “You might want to stand a little way back now, Banana.”

 

“Why?”

 

There was a crackle, and a thud as the Servitor hit the ground.

 

“Stun gun.” Toshiko returned the implement to her handbag.

 

“Nifty.”

 

“You and your syringe did all the important work. Diabetes?”

 

Banana nodded. “Type 1. Diagnosed last year.”

 

“Thought so. You saved my life, Banana. I won’t forget that.”

 

“Think nothing of it, pet.” He scratched his nose. “I don’t suppose...”

 

“Still not sleeping with you, though.”

 

“Can’t fault a man for trying.” Banana took off his jacket, and eyed the heap of rubble. “Need a hand?”

 

“Please. I identified several key fragments which it would take both of us to lift.”

 

“Let’s get cracking, the... Wait a minute. You’ve already picked out some bits for me to shift?”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“You _knew_ I’d come back?”

 

“More of a strong suspicion than a certainty. But, yes: I thought you probably would.”

 

“Why? You only met me this morning. You don’t know me.”

 

“No. But I do know Rhys Williams, at least a little. Enough to suspect that he wouldn’t pick anyone as his Best Man who couldn’t man up if he really had to.”

 

Banana blushed. “That’s a lovely thought, sweetheart.”

 

“I’m glad you think so.”

 

“Yet at the same time, manipulative as all bleeding hell.”

 

Toshiko grinned. “Gwen must have rubbed off on me more than I thought.”

 

“Literally?”

 

“Well, there was that one time. Alien sex-pollen.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“No.”

 

“There’s no justice. So – what am I shifting?”

 

“Grab one end of that chunk there, please. I swear: this is the last time I attend a wedding without bringing Magna-Clamps.”

 

***

 

“Are we nearly there?”

 

“Yes. The Reception Hall is around the next corner. Not too late to back out if you want, Banana. It’s been very brave of you to help me this far, but the focal point might get a bit... hairy. And I still don’t know exactly what to do when I reach it.”

 

“Still got your back, sweetheart. This Banana may be green, but he isn’t yellow.”

 

“How long have you been waiting to say that?”

 

“About twenty minutes. Thought it up while we were back there pumping masonry. Cheesy?”

 

“A little. But my boss has perpetrated worse.”

 

Toshiko was holding her handgun ready. She had eventually acquiesced, with an expression of profound misgiving, in Banana’s desire to carry the Chorvani rifle (“It won’t have a recoil, so just aim and squeeze the trigger. Please be careful : Cardiff may be facing Doom with a big D, but that doesn’t mean you should act as though you’re playing it. Clear?”). Thus far, however, their progress had been uneventful.

 

The Reception Hall, once they cautiously rounded the corner, seemed at first glance to present more of the same. True enough, it bore the scars of the last few frenetic hours.  Most of its furniture lay in ruins; the floor and walls were pitted with bullet-holes and burn-marks. But there was nothing here that announced itself as alien.

 

At least until you looked at the dance-floor.

 

There, in the centre of the room, a dark form flickered and pulsed. It seemed to be constructed out of shadow – a black cubicle, somewhat broader and taller than a man. Banana’s eyes widened.

 

“What in Christ’s name is that?”

 

“No idea.” Toshiko now had that PDA of hers out, and was inspecting its readings. “But it’s standing at the exact focal point of the disturbance. I think it’s what’s been causing the fissures.”

 

“Problem solved, then.” Banana levelled the Chorvani rifle at the shadowy shape. “Let’s blow this mother to Kingdom Co...”

 

“No.” Toshiko, without looking up from her device, put out a hand to force the muzzle down. “Blasting it won’t achieve anything. Look at it, will you? I don’t even think it’s fully there.”

 

“What do we do, then?”

 

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.” Toshiko gnawed her lip. “I’d hoped that once I got some more accurate readings, I could work out how to stop this thing from splitting open Cardiff like an orange. But I can’t. There’s no way I can see from these data to dismiss or destroy it. I haven’t even got a clue what it is. I’ve failed.”

 

Banana looked at the slump in Toshiko’s shoulders. He wondered how you went about rallying despondent girl ninjas. Where the bloody hell was Rhys, when you needed him? “Chin up, gorgeous. Something’s bound to come along, isn’t it?” _Just hope it doesn’t have tentacles and a flame-thrower._

 

“Maybe.” Toshiko continued to prod listlessly at her PDA

 

“And I’ll tell you another thing: I’m not going anywhere until you crack this.” Banana nodded decisively. “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin.”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“ ...’Course, I don’t actually _have_ any hair on my chin. Tried the old face fungus once – never again. Made me look like Noel Edmonds. But I thought that sounded appropriate, like, on account of the story. You know the one. ‘Let me come in! Let me come in!’ ‘Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!’ My old Mam always.... Toshiko?”

 

She was looking up at him, eyes shining.

 

“Um... did I say something good?”

 

“Banana Boat, you’re a genius.”

 

“I am?” Banana trotted in the wake of Toshiko, who was now striding determinedly across the dance-floor. In the direction, he could not help noticing, of the Big Black Box of Bode. “Well: takes one to know one, I suppose, but how exactly...”

 

“ I understand what I have to do, now.” Toshiko’s fingers were darting across her PDA with renewed vigour. “And it’s all thanks to you.”

 

“It is?” Banana basked in cryptic glory. “Terrific. So, what are you planning to do to this box, then?”

 

“I’m going to open it.”

 

Banana’s mouth opened and closed. “You’re going to... open... the scary shadow box that’s about to rip South Wales in half... and you’re doing it... because of something _I said_.”

 

“Oh yes.” Toshiko was hunched over her tiny console. “Well, not just because of what you said. There were other clues, of course. But it was you that made me see them in the right pattern.”

 

“Clues?”

 

“Three, to be exact. One: there _is_ a reason why someone might send an easy cipher in 1943. Two: Only four people know the full consequences of my friend Owen’s drinking habits. And three (which I really should have noticed, since it was pointed out to us): Chorvani Servitors don’t speak English.”

 

“I see,” said Banana sagely. He considered for a moment. “Except that I don’t. How does the fact your mate is a piss-head tie up to Bletchley Park?”

 

Toshiko’s fingers blurred on her PDA. It started to emit a high, insinuating whine, as she played it through  the air in front of the black box. “Because this is good. This is very, very good. It’s a minimum information puzzle. Say you want someone to accomplish something, and, for whatever reason, you only have eleven characters to do it. If you waste space telling her who you are, you don’t have room for the instructions. But if you only give the instructions, then why should she trust you enough to follow them? Solution: you turn the instructions into the signature.”

 

“Great. Um... Toshiko?”

 

“Please don’t distract me, Banana. Getting this thing open with only my hand-held tech would be impossible, if it didn’t actually want to be opened. That just makes it very, very hard. And who knows when the fissures will drop in more waifs and strays from the Rift?”

 

“Er...” Banana’s gaze was locked on the other side of the room.  “I’m sort of on that page already....”

 

“Oh dear.” Toshiko had not raised her head, unwilling, presumably, to take the risk of her display scrambling itself when she looked away. “Do we have company?”

 

“Uh-huh.” Banana Boat had never liked Venus Fly-Traps. Whichever intergalactic Alan Titchmarsh had decided they would be improved by being eight feet tall and mobile would win no plaudits from him. “Six huge plant-things just came around the corner. They don’t look friendly.”

 

“That sounds like the Veprexa. No real sapience, but driven to consume human flesh and blood; very nasty. Fire at will.”

 

“Fantastic. BITE THIS, TREEBEARD!”

 

The next minute or so was rather crowded. Banana had an energy rifle, but the shambling hordes before him had reinforcements. Toshiko had warned that his weapon’s jaunt through the Rift would probably have drained its power cell; after several exhilarating strafes it did, indeed, shoot its last. Banana looked at the undaunted tide of verdure sweeping towards him; thought for a moment of poor old Mervyn (a bit of a shit, in sober truth, but where was that punishable by disembowelling?), and for another of his Mam; and then moved to shield the small preoccupied form at his back as best he could. So this was what courage felt like, he reflected. It was hard to distinguish from a hang-over.      

 

Then Toshiko laughed behind him, one high clear peal of triumph. “ _Little pig, little pig_ ,” she chanted, “ _let me come in_.” She pressed a final button on her PDA. The oncoming Veprexa vanished, as did the depleted gun in Banana’s hands.

 

The shadow box faded into focus, and began to open.

 

4\. The Other Bride.

 

Within the box was a room of wonders. Not the least of these, Banana vaguely realized (as Toshiko took him by the hand, and pulled him inside unresisting) was how the room had fitted in the box. But Toshiko seemed to have no eyes, now, for the stairways, or the screens, or the console that loomed at the centre like an altar. Her attention was focussed on the occupant: a tall, angular man, clad in top hat and white tie. He advanced to meet them, arms spread in welcome. The door of the room eased shut behind them.

 

“Toshiko Sato! Glad you could make it.” The tall man was carrying something which looked a bit like an electric toothbrush in one hand. He clicked it against Toshiko’s PDA. “Love your sonic. Who’s your friend?”

 

Toshiko nudged Banana in the ribs. He stopped gawking for a moment and pulled himself together. “Colin Davies, mate. But everyone calls me Banana Boat.”

 

“Excellent.” A warm hand was thrust into Banana’s, and pumped it vigorously. “I like bananas. Especially ones that save my life. They’re particularly good.”

 

“Glad to hear it.” Banana was suddenly and incongruously conscious of a... requirement that adrenaline had been making him ignore. One that was ironic, when you considered where he had spent the last few hours. “Look, this is going to sound really rude, man, but does this... place of yours have a toilet? I’m proper busting for a whizz, like.”

 

If the man in the top hat was surprised, he gave no sign of it. “Of course. All mod cons, here. Up that stairway; second on the right, then third on the left, the door between the aquarium and the swimming-pool. Unless the swimming-pool is also the aquarium, now. Might be. Haven’t got round to checking.”

 

“Cheers, mate. You’re a life-saver.” Banana tottered in the direction of the stairway, as the tall man turned his gaze back to Toshiko.

 

“It’s been a while, Dr. Sato.”

 

Toshiko flushed a little. “I’m not a real doctor. Despite what my credentials said at the hospital.”

 

“Well, neither am I, as Martha never failed to remind me.” The Doctor frowned. “You have met her now, haven’t you?”

 

“Yes. Just a couple of weeks ago, actually.”

 

“I’m relieved. It’s hard to keep track of where everyone is.”

 

“You can talk.” Toshiko felt more at ease, somehow, with this version of him. If that frightening rage was still there, it was better hidden. “You’ve changed, since we met.”

 

“I have.”

 

“Twice?”

 

“Well-spotted. I wondered whether you would pick up on that.”

 

Toshiko shrugged. “Eleven characters in your message – probably a coincidence. I guessed that there was a limit to how much you could say. But the substitution in your Caesar cipher moved each letter eleven places along. That seemed a little too pointed to be an accident.”

 

“Excellent.” He clapped his hands together in delight. “I knew you’d be good!”

 

“Is this your new... look? The top-hat; the button-hole; the scarf?”

 

“What? Oh. No. No, it isn’t. Though maybe it should be. Top hats are cool. In fact, I’m going to a wedding.”

 

Toshiko looked thoughtful. “Sounds like another non-coincidence. Who’s the bride?”

 

“That I probably shouldn’t say. Spoilers. Let’s call her The Girl Who Waited. Thanks to you, she’s now in the process of saving my life.”

 

“I don’t follow.”

 

“It goes like this. In about two years’ time, from your perspective, an attack of unknown origin targets the TARDIS and almost manages to erase me from reality. It fails, because The Girl Who Waited remembers me into existence. Before the attack locks me outside the Universe, I sprinkle clues across her time-stream. They all come together on her wedding day, when a quixotic bride marries a good man above a crack in the world, and crowbars the strange back into Creation with nothing more than her own stubbornness to do it. Something old; something new; something borrowed; something blue. A perfect plan. Except for one small problem.”

 

“A problem?”

 

“The plan didn’t account for the other bride.”

 

“Gwen Cooper?”

 

“Gwen Cooper.”

 

“You know about Gwen’s wedding?”

 

“Jack told me. He mentioned the Nostrovite, but nothing subsequent to that. Time Agency training, I expect; he was afraid of spoilers. From your perspective, of course, he hasn’t done that yet.”

 

“Your past; his future?”

 

“Such a pleasure explaining this sort of thing to someone who can keep up. Now, consider Gwen’s wedding. An adventurous bride marries a valiant groom above a hole in time. Precisely the combination of elements the TARDIS needs to return to reality... except that Gwen Cooper won’t remember me. How could she? She hasn’t even met me yet. Her wedding steals the shadow of my TARDIS from the other one, which promptly inflames your Rift. Unless I manage to contact someone with the necessary skills in Cardiff to sort this out, the TARDIS can’t fully manifest at that future wedding. Game Over. Since I’m currently locked outside the Universe, that contact presents something of a problem.”

 

“But you had a life-line.” Toshiko leaned forward intently. “Two, in fact. Ask the Audience, and Phone a Friend.”

 

“Text a Friend, actually. Otherwise, spot on.”

 

“Whom did you text in 1943? It must have been someone very important in the British Government.”

 

“Winston Churchill. It had to be dear old Winnie I texted, because his was the last number in the TARDIS phone’s memory. Also, as you correctly surmised, she only had the power left to send eleven characters. The worst of it was that I couldn’t even be sure he would know who was sending the message. I share the use of that hot-line with other people.”

 

“And the characters you projected out into Cardiff through the TARDIS’s telepathic translation field – those had to be the same as well?”

 

“Quite so. It takes an appalling amount of energy to hack reality from the outside, so I only squeezed out a single sequence. Although I hoped that the fact the spoken translation function was still working normally near the shadow would be another hint.”

 

“It was, eventually.” Toshiko wrinkled her nose. “ I was far too slow, on that score. A Chorvani Servitor we met as good as told us that it thought we were talking to it in Chorvani, but I didn’t notice.”

 

“Never mind. You understood the instruction. Exactly as I hoped you would. Jack’s brilliant Toshiko.” The Doctor smiled. “You should hear the stories he tells of you.”

 

“He tells stories about me? That sounds a bit sentimental, for the Jack I know.”

 

The Doctor gazed at her steadily. Toshiko sighed, and bowed her head.

 

“Oh. I see. Your past; his future. Jack talks about me after I die, doesn’t he?”

 

“Toshiko...”

 

“It’s OK. It really is.” Toshiko cleared her throat. “I suppose, sooner or later, that’s how Jack has to talk about everyone.” Her expression brightened again. “But your message.... That was so elegant. It solved all the problems your situation imposed. If you had just sent, say, OPENBOXIMDR... well, the shadow TARDIS looked pretty threatening, and lots of things can _pretend_ to be you. I bet some of them wouldn’t mind waiting sixty-five years for a plan to come to fruition. So, you customized it. You turned the message into a simple cipher, to encourage Churchill to send it to Bletchley Park. Did Jack tell you that my grandfather was a code-breaker?”

 

“He did.”

 

“The content was the really clever bit, though. Your instructions andyour signature. A message sent to 1943 which was both a request  _and_  a reference to something that happened in 2006, that only you, me, Jack and Owen would fully understand. I was stupid there, again. Without Banana, I probably wouldn’t have remembered the ‘little pig’. What made you think of it?”

 

The Doctor puffed out his cheeks. “Questions, really. So many questions. I walk through the world, through the worlds, even, and the questions hit me like a blizzard. I talk fast....”

 

“You do talk fast.”

 

“I do, but even then, I never manage to ask enough of them in time. And that, that can be a tragedy. There’s a woman, a brilliant woman, hunched up terrified in a corner. Why is she terrified? She thinks an alien’s come back to life, true enough. But it’s a small alien; she’s presumably been trained for this; and Albion Hospital is as safe as houses. As safe as a house that’s a hospital. After all, it’s crawling with UNIT soldiers. But that’s the point, isn’t it? This woman isn’t terrified despite all the UNIT soldiers...”

 

Toshiko shivered, and forced herself to look up.

 

“... she’s terrified _because_ of them.”

 

His face was younger, his eyes older, than the last time she had held his gaze like this.

 

“I thought I could handle it.” Toshiko swallowed. “I was wrong. I was so afraid – alone in the Hospital, with _them_ – that I couldn’t think straight. That poor creature...”

 

“... was the victim of the Slitheen, and not of you. You’re in the business of saving lives, Toshiko, and take the word of an old pro that you’re good at it. Speaking of which...”

 

The TARDIS shuddered for a moment, and then was still.

 

“... I think a certain bride has just succeeded in keeping it real.”

 

A knock echoed through the cavernous room. Then a woman’s voice - young, Scottish, somewhat imperious – sounded from outside: “OK, Doctor, did I surprise you this time?”

 

The Doctor put his finger to his lips, ushered Toshiko to one side, and opened the door. “Ah, yeah. Completely astonished. Never expected that. How lucky I happened to be wearing this old thing. Hello, everyone.. _._ ” He sallied out, shutting the door behind him.  After a minute or two he re-entered (“... I only came for the dancing.”) and darted to the central console.

 

“Right. I’ve told them I’m moving the TARDIS outside. That’s true enough, but it also gives me the chance to drop you and Mr. Boat back in Cardiff at your reception.”

 

“Mmmm.”

 

“Right away. Obviously.”

 

“Obviously...”

 

“With no detours. Can’t have Jack thinking I steal his staff, after all.”

 

“I suppose...”

 

Toshiko was looking at him. Were all Earth girls that good at the big-eyed thing? It must be something in the DNA. The Doctor sighed, and raised his hands in defeat.

 

“OK. One round trip before I drop you off. Where would you like to visit?”

 

***

 

Banana made it back to the control room on his third go. Toshiko and the tall bloke were darting around that central thingy, pulling and pressing widgets as they went. The Dance of the Nerds. Toshiko smiled in his direction.

 

“Banana! Everything OK?”

 

“Pretty much.” Banana walked down the staircase to join them. “Why is there a sporran in your toilet?”

 

“That will be Jamie’s,” said the tall bloke. “He never was that careful with his clothes.”

 

“Right. Er. Are we heading back to Cardiff now, then?”

 

“Soon, yes.” Toshiko seemed to be avoiding his eye. “The Doctor’s letting me see Peladon first.”

 

“Peladon? That’s near Tenerife, isn’t it?”

 

“Nearer than some places,” the tall bloke said brightly. He coughed. “Further than others...”

 

Banana raised himself to his full height. “I only have one question for you, mate: will there be drinks?”

 

“Almost certainly.”

 

Banana heaved a sigh of contentment. “Sorted.”

 

FINIS


End file.
